Jonah Lehrer has an interesting piece at Wired about a study on creativity and constraint. Specifically, it’s about how having some kind of limitation actually enhances creative thinking. Lehrer’s example got me all excited. He talks about how writing in forms—sonnets, sestinas, haikus—actually frees the imagination to be even more creative and make ever more unexpected connections. I write poetry in forms; I also do better work when I have constraints.

I could blether on about the implications of this idea for days, but for now, here’s a key point: “The larger lesson is that the brain is a neural tangle of near infinite possibility, which means that it spends a lot of time and energy choosing what not to notice. As a result, creativity is traded away for efficiency” [emphasis mine].

When you are observing research, when you are planning research, and certainly when you are deciding what to do with findings, what do you choose not to notice? What are you losing by making that choice…

Am I prodding you to escape limitations, which is counter to the article’s argument? Well sort of. I’m prodding you to think about the limitations, and choose them so they add value. And when you encounter the limitations, don’t go into autopilot in how you go around or through them. Just because you find yourself writing a sonnet doesn’t mean you need to rhyme “love” and “dove.” What about “love” and “all of the above”?